


Torn (or I walk with you wherever)

by f_vikus



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Abduction, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_vikus/pseuds/f_vikus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After they get McCoy back, Jim keeps watch.  Because McCoy can't.  They call it surviving.  They call it PTSD.  McCoy doesn't call it anything.  Jim just waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Torn (or I walk with you wherever)

 

 

There is such grief in his actions, an emptiness that hangs around him like a secret cloth.  Jim sees it in Bones’ face, flickering across his eyes like a moth, landing to rest at the corner of his mouth.  It happens more and more these days, these shadows fluttering around Bones, almost like a default decoration.  When he sees them (and this is often, during lunch, when Bones leaves Sickbay, as they’re walking back to Jim’s quarters) Jim reaches for them, for Bones’ face, clumsily waving away the ghosts. 

The grief is audible, a high-pitched whine only Jim is trained to hear.  Jim likens himself to a watchdog of sorts, a dog trained to sniff out bombs and drugs and irregularities.  He’s learned to detect the oddities, even though it’s only been three weeks since they pulled Bones out of the cell.  Bones looks haggard, tense, like it’s been three months, three years.

Bones’ voice is laced with a mournful quality that had not been there years ago.  It seeps through the break in Bones’ voice when they talk, and is present in Bones’ body when they don’t.  Jim watches Bones try not to wince when someone touches Bones for too long, watches as Bones grouches and grumps like before, trying to cover his slip, but it hurts him all the same.  Bones hunches into himself, and keeps watch out of the corner of his eye.  He stays near the door, muscles tense, as if he’s ready to bolt, run –

Jim swears (swore long time ago, when they were young and more resilient, when their failures didn’t lead to one of them slowly cracking) to be Bones’ defender.  Of course Bones doesn’t know this, not officially of course.  Jim will never tell him, out of embarrassment, out of –

He doesn’t know anymore.   Bones is frayed, and Jim keeps on snipping the loose threads, keeps trying to sew Bones together.  He can’t stop, not now, not ever, because stopping means giving up.

So Jim tries desperately to keep Bones together, to prevent him from spilling all out, but it gets harder each day.  Bones changes, is trying to disappear within himself, and Jim is frightened at this revelation.

Jim senses the weight of Bones’ heart, and grieves along with him. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> There's a backstory in there somewhere. I just have to pull it out from the back of my brain and write it.


End file.
